The Measure of the Magic

by Terry Brooks

  He experienced a fresh pang of disappointment thinking back once more on how they had separated. The fact was she had left him behind, and he did not like how it made him feel. She had said the dragon would not take them both, but he had wondered about that from the moment she had said it. He had helped her leave him, knowing she genuinely believed her people needed her more than he did. It wasn’t his place to second-guess her choice. Not even if his doubts proved to be valid.

  He looked east again. He could argue this with himself all night, and had pretty much done so. But his own problems were more pressing than his wounded pride and damaged heart. He might love her; he might even one day see something come of that love. But just now, it didn’t really matter. Just now, it was a small thing.

  Putting any further debate aside, he started walking. It was still dark, dawn an hour or so away, but he would reach the pass by then and discover how things stood. Phryne Amarantyne had troubled him from that first day when they had climbed out of the valley toward Aphalion Pass, and he expected she would continue to do so for some time to come. Prue would have known what to say to him, had she been there. Prue always knew what to say.

  But Prue wasn’t there, of course, and the best he could hope for was that he would find her again before another day passed.

  He trekked on, wending his way over rough hills and down twisty gullies, stirring up dust as he walked through country that felt as dead as his hopes for remaining a Tracker. That dream was over—for both Prue and himself. Things would never be the same for them again, and that was a pain he felt more keenly than anything related to Phryne Amarantyne. He wished there was something he could do to change what had happened to Prue, but he knew there wasn’t. She had made the choice that had diminished her sight; it had never been his to make. She’d had a chance to help keep him safe, and he understood it was a chance she would take every time it was offered regardless of the price extracted. Prue was like that. Loyalty and sacrifice were qualities she valued and understood. Particularly where it involved those she was close to and especially with him.

  He wondered where she was.

  He wondered what had happened to her.

  Moonlight shone out of a cloudless sky, the barren world about him as silent and lifeless as a cemetery, he continued walking, searching for a way he could find out.

  PRUE LISS AND AISLINNE KRAY CROUCHED in the concealment of a cluster of rocks at the head of the pass leading out from Declan Reach, as silent as shadows. The man they had left behind had whispered of killing and madness, his voice hoarse and barely audible, his wounds grievous enough that he could not continue farther, and they had left him there for others to find. And eventually others had come, though only a handful, stumbling out from the killing field in ones and twos, ragged figures in the darkness, bloodied and despairing, the last of those who had gone with Skeal Eile to die on the flats beyond.

  “All dead,” one woman had gasped as she came up to them and they caught her in their arms. “Killed, every one of them. Killed by him, by the Seraphic! He lied to us. He deceived us all.”

  Another had repeated the words, bitter and enraged and devastated by what had happened. That one, too, had gone on. Aislinne had given each of them water to drink and a bit of food and told them to wait inside the pass for help to come. Where it would come from, she had no idea. But it was all Prue or she could do. The scarlet dove flew on, and they were committed to following it to where they would find Panterra Qu and whatever fate awaited them all.

  Now they were in hiding at the far end of the pass and had seen for themselves the source of the horrific stories related by the ragged people they had encountered earlier. Not a hundred yards from where they crouched the killing field began, a span of several acres covered by the mingled corpses of Drouj and people from Glensk Wood alike sprawled everywhere across the slopes. Neither she nor Aislinne had ever seen so many dead people before, and the enormity of it was appalling. Human men, women, and children and Drouj soldiers, their blood dark and stiff on their skin and clothing, their limbs twisted and fixed, their eyes blank and staring. Many of these were people they had known; some had been friends and neighbors. None had deserved this.

  In the midst of this carnage, Skeal Eile sat waiting, his back to them and his eyes on the countryside beyond. They had seen his features clearly when they had crept through the shadows of the defile to their hiding place, not daring to come any closer than they were. He had been moving about then, glancing this way and that, his nose lifting as if he were testing the air for scent. They knew he wasn’t who he seemed—he wasn’t Skeal Eile at all, but the demon that had tracked them both. They could feel what he was in their bones—Prue in particular, her instincts screaming at her, shivers running up and down her spine. They looked at each other, their breathing labored and harsh in their throats, and they knew.

  But they had not spoken of it. Not once. At first, it had been too risky with the demon threading his way through the dead, turning this way and that, searching. It was dangerous enough being this close to him. Later, when he had settled down and taken up his current place of watch, they had still kept silent, an unspoken agreement. Once, Aislinne had gestured to suggest that perhaps they should retreat farther back into the pass. But Prue had pointed to where the scarlet dove had come to roost in the rocks overhead. It was no longer leading them, she indicated. It had found what it was looking for. It was waiting here for Panterra Qu, and she and Aislinne must wait with it.

  By gesturing and mouthing words, she made her point, and even though Aislinne could not see the dove, she had understood, nodded in agreement, and settled back with her bow and arrows clutched close. If this was where the matter was to be decided, Aislinne Kray would take a stand, as well. Prue knew what she was thinking, how she had made up her mind that it would all end here. Both of them had come searching for a resolution to the madness that had been threatening all of them ever since the demon had found his way into the valley, and now both believed that no resolution could be found without Panterra Qu. He was coming, and the demon was waiting for him. There was no other explanation for what was happening. The dead were meant to draw the bearer of the black staff, and the demon would wait for as long as it took for that to happen.

  But Prue and Aislinne would wait with him. They could be patient, too.

  Aislinne shifted closer to Prue and put her lips to the girl’s ear.

  I could kill him from here.

  Prue looked at her.

  One shot, through the heart. A second to join it, if I am lucky. It might be worth trying. We could end it all.

  Prue shook her head. You can’t kill him that way.

  We don’t know that.

  I know it. The King of the Silver River said Pan must confront the demon to put an end to him. We must wait for that.

  Aislinne studied her face for a long time, and then nodded and settled back once more.

  On the slopes leading up to the pass where the demon sat amid the dead, the darkness was beginning to draw back.

  THE DEMON WAS A PATIENT CREATURE. Waiting did not trouble it. Even waiting days or weeks did not distress it. It had learned how to wait, helped in part because its life span was so long and time was so unimportant. It was easy to wait in this instance, where it would yield such rich rewards. There were many things not worth waiting for and times when patience was wasted, but it was not the case here. The demon had already been waiting centuries. It had not even come close to laying hands upon one of the black staffs since the collapse of the old world and the destruction of the last of the Knights of the Word. The possibility of it happening now was exciting and compelling, and his need for it was overwhelming. Possession of power drew the demon now as always—power over life and death. That power would soon be his, and the satisfaction he would feel when it was his to wield was worth any wait.

  So he sat there in the killing field, the smell of death all around him, sharp and pungent in the night air. He drank it in out of hab
it, but barely gave it a thought as he did so. He had drunk it in so often, been surrounded by it so endlessly, that it no longer held much interest. The dead that lay at his feet were worth nothing in any case. It was the bearer’s life that had real value.

  It was his anticipation of what it would feel like to take that life that mattered.

  Had he been less immersed in the intoxicating smell and taste of death and less obsessed by his craving for the power of the black staff, he might have sensed the presence of Prue Liss, who was hidden little more than a hundred yards away. He might have caught a whiff of her strange magic or a whisper of her companion’s soft breathing. But on this night, in this place, and with his thoughts directed on other matters, he failed to do so.

  Time slipped away, and once or twice he thought he heard stirrings from within the shadows of the entrance to the pass. But he gave it almost no thought, assuming it was one of those unfortunates who had managed to crawl from the heaps of dead in a futile effort to reach safety in Glensk Wood. Such safety was an illusion, given what he had planned for those who lived within the valley. And even if it was something or someone who thought to do him harm, he didn’t care because nothing that humans and their like possessed could threaten him. He had already seen the best of what they had, and it was nothing.

  Only the bearer of the staff could do him harm, and he would make swift work of that one, once he surfaced. A newly endowed bearer of magic was no match for someone like him, a practiced wielder, a skilled user, and a creature comfortable with death.

  He watched the darkness slowly fade, watched dawn’s light surface from behind the mountains east, watched the shadows draw back and begin, one by one, to vanish. The new day had arrived, and it held the promise of something wonderful.

  Then suddenly he saw the solitary figure moving across the foothills west, slowly taking shape as it emerged from the gloom. A man carrying a black staff. He could hardly believe his good fortune.

  Anticipation coursing through him, he watched the man draw closer.

  PANTERRA SMELLED THE DEAD long before he saw them; the breeze wafting down out of the mountains carried the stench to where he trudged through the early-morning light. The slopes ahead were crumpled and riven by gullies and ravines, and the shadows hid the bodies until he was no more than a hundred yards off. He was struck at once by their numbers. Hundreds littered the landscape—perhaps thousands—twisted and layered in death, intertwined in a complicated weaving of limbs and bodies. He couldn’t tell who they were and couldn’t begin to guess what had brought them there, so close to the mouth of the pass at Declan Reach that they almost certainly must have come from within the valley. Refugees, perhaps, fleeing some horror that had taken place in his absence.

  Or was this something else?

  As he got closer, he realized that the dead were both human and Troll, and that in all likelihood, they had killed one another. Some were still locked in death grips, weapons in hand, arms clasped about each other. The Trolls were armored and the humans were not, but there were so many more of the latter that he knew what they had lacked in arms and armor they had made up for in numbers. The struggle had been bitter and quarter had not been given. The dead included women and children, as well as men; it included young and old. Apparently, the Trolls had been waiting for this exodus and had fallen on the travelers as they started downslope from the pass entrance.

  He ventured closer and peered down at the faces. Two he recognized right away. They were from Glensk Wood. The man had been a carpenter, the woman his wife. They had lived not far from him when he was growing up. He glanced about in disbelief and found more familiar faces. They were all from his village.

  Then he saw the solitary figure sitting in the midst of the dead back toward the cliff wall, still almost entirely hidden in shadow. He straightened and took a closer look, trying to make out who it was. He took a step forward, took another, and then a few more.

  The figure rose suddenly and stepped toward him, coming out of the shadows and into the dawn light. It was Skeal Eile.

  Right away, Pan knew the Seraphic was responsible for what had happened. He knew it instinctively, the way he knew how to read sign and sense the way a trail would go just from a single scrape of a boot on a rock. This was Skeal Eile’s doing, all these people dead, people from Glensk Wood who had followed and trusted him. The boy flushed with rage, wondering if the Seraphic had managed to find a way to kill everyone in the village. Were Prue’s parents among the dead? Was Prue herself? Aislinne? How many others he had known all his life? How many lay dead at his feet, all because of this one hateful man?

  He started forward in a white-hot rage, and he might have kept going except that suddenly the runes carved into his black staff began to burn fiercely. Their light was sudden and brilliant, and he stopped where he was. It was an unmistakable warning. He knew that much from what Sider had told him. When there was extreme danger close at hand, the runes would glow. But what sort of danger was it that threatened here? Not Skeal Eile. He was treacherous and manipulative, but Pan was his match even without the staff. This was something else.

  Then he remembered the demon that Prue had said was hunting him, and he cast about for some sign of it. But nothing moved on the killing field. There was only Skeal Eile and himself. He stayed where he was, thinking it through. The demon might be hiding in the pass, but why would it do that when he was close enough for it to attack? Was it counting on the Seraphic to somehow distract him?

  He had too many questions and not enough answers. He had to act on what he could see.

  “What’s happened here?” he called out.

  Skeal Eile shook his head, coming a few steps closer. “The villagers were set upon by the Trolls when they emerged from the pass last night. They killed each other. Even Arik Siq is dead. He lies here.” He gestured at a body sprawled close by. “Would you like to see for yourself?”

  “Where were these people going?” Pan asked, ignoring the offer.

  “To find a new home outside the valley. To go somewhere safe. I was leading them there. I was sent a dream by the boy Hawk, telling me where to go.” He shook his head. “But I only led them to this. My own people.”

  He sounded genuinely stricken, but Pan didn’t trust it. “Yet you survived while they all died?”

  “A cruel trick of fate. I was knocked down early and pinned beneath the bodies. I lay there until it was over, stunned and bleeding, unable to move.”

  “Your vaunted magic? Your skills with oratory? Nothing would have helped?”

  “Do not mock me, boy. I did what I could. I don’t have to explain myself to you or anyone else.”

  This was the Skeal Eile Pan knew, arrogant and dismissive. The boy began to advance on him anew, enraged. But once again the runes of his staff blazed and a fresh uneasiness washed through him.

  He stopped once more, trying to decide what was wrong. The demon was here. It had to be. Close by. It felt as if it were right in front of him.

  His gaze fastened on Skeal Eile. Right in front of him. Skeal Eile, for all intents and purposes, but yet not quite as Pan remembered him. Something was different—enough so that he realized the truth. He took a quick breath. He had almost missed it, almost given himself over to his worst enemy. This wasn’t the Seraphic he was dealing with, even if that was how it appeared. It wasn’t the Seraphic who was standing there, speaking to him.

  It was the demon.

  The confrontation that Prue had warned him about was happening right now, and he hadn’t even been aware of it.

  He had just enough time to whip the staff around in front of him like a shield, the magic flowing through its length and into his body, his startled recognition changing to steely determination as the demon attacked. It must have seen something in his eyes or read it in his body language, but it acted quickly, arms extending in a billowing of black robes, fire lancing out in a wicked green wave. The magic slammed into Panterra and threw him backward, knocking him off his feet
to sprawl among the dead. It washed over him like a blanket that would smother him, sucking away all the air, its heat intensifying as it pressed downward. Pan fought back with his own magic, using the staff to keep the flames at bay, fighting to gain space and time.

  When the attack broke off, a sudden cessation of sustained effort, Pan rolled away from the place to which he had been pinned and surged back to his feet. But at once the attack began anew, this time in a series of sharp bursts that struck with such force his bones rattled. He fought this attack off, too, but it drained his energy and left him shaking. The demon was giving him no chance to react to what was happening. He was fighting a defensive battle, and the effort he was expending kept him from mounting any sort of counteroffensive.

  “Put down the staff, Panterra!” the demon shouted at him, striking out once more, using blades of fire this time, spear points that lanced and cut like steel edges. “You can’t harm me. You can’t defeat me. Don’t be foolish. Lay down the staff, and I will let you live. The staff is all I care about.”

  He kept coming toward Pan as he attacked, getting steadily closer. Pan was being wrenched about, knocked over each time he sought to gain his feet, pressed backward as if by a great wind. He managed to keep the staff between himself and the demon, fending off each punishing blow it delivered, but he could do little else.

  “Are you listening?” the demon called out. “Time isn’t something you have to waste, boy. Better that you do as I say before I am forced to turn you to dust. What a shame it would be if you failed to protect that little girl who thinks so much of you.”

  Pan clenched his teeth, trying to respond. But he couldn’t speak.

  “Your friends are all dead, Panterra. Did you know that? The girl is all that’s left. If you want to keep her safe, lay down the staff. Don’t be a fool. Do it now.”

  Whatever else he did, it would not be that. His hands tightened on the length of black wood, feeling the steady pulse of the runes against his skin, and he fought his way back to his feet once more.